Weekend Reset Tips and Tricks | Working Homeschool Mom

Feeling overwhelmed in your homeschool like you never have enough time in your day? I’m going to introduce you to the magic of Sunday resets!!

If you’ve watched our videos before, welcome back! We appreciate you! If you’re new here welcome! I’m Tonya Johnson and I’m the Holiday Homeschooler where we believe every season is a holiday season. We love celebrating life and showing you how you can have a fun and exciting homeschool while keeping a biblical worldview.

One thing I love about holidays is that they are usually pretty chill and stress free. What if I told you that by implementing this one little weekly routine, your every day could feel like a holiday?! And spoiler alert, this doesn’t have to happen on a Sunday. Currently my Sunday resets happen on Saturday because like many of you, Sunday is full of ministry activities.

So what is a Sunday reset? Simply getting ahead or caught up on a few things that will make the rest of your week feel like a breeze!

First thing’s first. Choose your day. I like Saturday, because at least in this season, we typically don’t make plans on Saturdays. If we do, it’s in the evening and I just get my reset done before our plans begin. A good alternative if you don’t want to dedicate a whole day to this would be to schedule from 6am-noon on a Saturday and knock everything out or even noon-6 on a Monday after homeschool and knock it all out. You get to choose.

Realistically I don’t need an entire day. If I need to I can get everything done in 6-7 hours max, but I enjoy spreading it out over the course of a day. I also let myself watch a little tv during this time, spend extra time reading a book, soak a little longer in a bubble bath, etc. There’s some self care that goes into this reset day in addition to the 6 tasks below, and these are in no specific order. They each get one hour of focused time from me with the exception of number two on alternate weeks.

I plan out my homeschool year month by month, but each week I look through my lesson plans for the next 7 days, reorganize my homeschool cart where all of our daily work lives, and then gather all of the supplies needed for extras like science experiments, history projects, and math and literacy centers.

If you’re not sure where to start with your planning, I have an entire step by step guide here. 

This doesn’t take an hour at one time, but stripping the bed, putting on my new sheets and pillow cases, and then washing, drying, and putting away the set I just took off adds up to an hour throughout the day. I do this for our bed and my daugthter’s bed. For her, she strips it and puts the new set on, but I wash her old set and put them away for the next week.

This one is pretty self explanatory. I clean the house and get it ready to start a new week. Usually it’s pretty well kept clean throughout the week, but this is a great time to vacuum the stairs, move everything off the counters and clean underneath them, mop the traffic areas, etc.

This is an area that’s not usually kept up throughout the week. If you watched my video on “Daily Habits for the Proverbs 31 mom” you remember me telling you that each night I start a load of Landry and switch it over the next morning. I do really good at keeping the laundry clean, not so much at putting it away every day. During my Monday Reset I catch up all the laundry and cross my fingers that I’ll do better the next week haha This is one of those tasks that doesn't take the full hour. It usually takes 30-45 minutes, but I schedule in an hour as buffer time.

I alternate the above two tasks.

Every other week I do a 2 week menu/shopping list. This takes 30-45 min. Here is a detailed video that walks through exactly how I plan and execute my weekly meal prep saving me HOURS of time each week.

Then every other week I do my nails. This task takes me two hours to do both my hands and my feet which is why I say all the tasks take 6-7 hours. It varies depending on if it’s a mani/pedi week or a menu week.

This task I always do at the end of my reset day because the house is clean, I feel like I’m genuinely caught up on life, and I’m ready to sit down and tackle a another week. I take an hour, schedule out the next 7 days, and then go to bed excited to wake up and get started. I use the Bossmom Scheduling System for this. This system is how I went from always being anxious and overwhelmed to finally feeling in control of the chaos. It goes through the step by step process of learning the time management skills needed to do all the things required as a homeschool mom without getting burned out.

I get asked this question a lot because as moms we know we can’t just carve out a day to ourselves to get things done without having something for our kids to do. The ages of your kids will depend a lot on what this looks like for you, but everyone can achieve a reset day if they prioritize it. I have an entire class on time management for kids starting at age 2. Also, moving them from independent activity to independent activity will be a necessary component to your reset day. This is also why I suggest carving out a day to do this if you can because with multiple little kids, a 6 hour string of tasks will take all day. Make it a fun day for your kids with extra screen time, a special snack, some independent toys that only come out on reset day, etc. Check out the video that goes along with this blog for some more ideas on activities you can do with your kids to allow yourself a reset day.

My daughter is old enough now that she does reset day with me. She does some self care, we do her nails when I do mine (adding to the 2 hour time I quoted earlier btw), she helps me gather the necessary school materials, she catches up on her laundry and changes her bedding, and then she usually will clean a room in the house while I’m doing my cleaning. Here soon she’ll start getting some hands on practice with making the menu and the shopping list. 

I always remind myself that one day I’ll miss the inconveniences that come along with doing a reset day with kids under foot. Today, I’m going to choose to view it as the blessing it is and not worry about the extra mess it brings.

If you have any tips and tricks that you’d add to planning a reset day, let me know in the comments. See you next week!

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